DNA finds suspect in old L.A. killings
A 72-year-old is being investigated in rapes and slayings that terrorized women in '70s and '80s.
LOS ANGELES - The first wave of slayings haunted Los Angeles in the mid-1970s.
The killer slipped mostly unseen through the night, preying on older women who lived alone. He raped them and squeezed their necks until they passed out or died. Seventeen women were killed, found with pillows or blankets over their faces.
The second wave hit a decade later. There was another series of attacks on elderly women, including five rape-slayings in the nearby Los Angeles County town of Claremont. Again the victims' faces were covered.
Even with at least 20 survivors, police never connected the two homicide-and-rape rampages nor solved either of them. The survivors gave conflicting descriptions of the rapist and DNA technology had not come into use.
Now authorities say they have used a computer database of DNA developed in recent years to link John Floyd Thomas Jr. - a 72-year-old state insurance claims adjuster who twice has been convicted of sexual assault - to five of the slayings.
Detectives also describe him as a suspect in up to 25 more based on the circumstances of those crimes.
"When all is said and done, Mr. Thomas stands to be Los Angeles' most prolific serial killer," said Detective Richard Bengston of the robbery-homicide cold case unit.
Thomas was arrested at his apartment in South Los Angeles a month ago and charged April 2 with murder in the deaths of Ethel Sokoloff, 68, in 1972, and Elizabeth McKeown, 67, in 1976.
He said Thomas' DNA matched evidence found at five murder scenes, spanning both crime waves - the two homicides he is charged with, and three others.
Authorities are analyzing evidence in 25 other killings they suspect might be linked to Thomas.
Thomas had been working as an adjuster handling workers' compensation claims since 1989 - the year the killings stopped. He was arrested March 31.
His steady employment masked a troubled past.
He was arrested for burglary and attempted rape in Los Angeles. He was convicted and sentenced to six years in state prison in 1957. Two parole violations sent him back behind bars until 1966.
The first wave of rapes began a few years later. The so-called Westside Rapist attacked white seniors.
The LAPD questioned several suspects in those slayings. Thomas was not among them. During this period he was employed as a social worker, hospital employee and personal electronics salesman.
The attacks appeared to stop in 1978. That year, Thomas was sent to prison on a rape conviction.
When he was released in 1983, he moved to Chino - and a killer began stalking older woman again.
Over the next six years, Los Angeles County sheriff's detectives would investigate five slayings of elderly women in Claremont, Sgt. Richard Longshore said. During that period, Thomas worked in neighboring Pomona as a peer counselor at a hospital.
Detectives now believe the last in this cycle of killings occurred in 1989.
"As far as why he stopped, we don't know for sure if he stopped," Detective Rick Jackson said. "Who knows? It could be age-related, we just don't know enough about him at this time."
The break came last October, when two officers collected DNA from Thomas as part of an ongoing process to swab registered sex offenders. On March 27, the California Department of Justice DNA Laboratory notified detectives that his DNA matched the evidence from the Sokoloff slaying.